


Without Love

by GrimAnonymousRex



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Additional Characters to be added, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Eventual Romance, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gift Fic, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Prompt Fic, Rated mature for injury detail, finsu, only on the safe side
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:47:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23174164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrimAnonymousRex/pseuds/GrimAnonymousRex
Summary: This is a little gift-fic written for one of the awesome peeps on the Nordictalia discord server and based on a prompt from Tumblr. Some parts of the prompts have been used, others have been changed.
Relationships: Finland/Sweden (Hetalia)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 15





	Without Love

"Excuse me, sir, but the library is closing now."

Berwald looked up from his book to see the head librarian stood over him, wearing a slightly impatient look on his face. Mr Wang was the owner of the library, a no nonsense man whose care in his books could almost be described as possessive. The man tapped at his watch, signalling the hour.

"Of course. Apologies," he mumbled quietly before putting the book away under Mr Wang's watchful eye. Unwillingly, Berwald made his way out of the library and back to his house.

If it had been the other librarian, he knew he could have stayed an extra half an hour but he never worked on Mondays and so Berwald was forced to leave his safe refuge to return home. The only good thing about that was that more books awaited him but he'd read and re-read them so many times that the bindings were coming apart and the pages were wearing thin, but he loved them so much. His books were precious, great tomes of romance, magic and mystery, never failing to fill him with joy.

Sometimes, Berwald placed so much love into his books it almost felt that they were loving him back. 

It didn't take long for the house to come into view. In fact, the mansion was visible for miles around, sat on the outskirts of Visby. Of course, the grand Oxenstierna family couldn't live in the village itself- no. Like all nobility they oversaw proceedings from a distance. The young lord frowned in disdain for it; it was the twenty-first century, for heaven's sake, but still his family refused to appreciate the changing times, the shifting dynamic.

They refused to accept that Berwald wanted to marry for love, not money.

He sighed, forcing the air from his nose. How could he expect his parents to understand love when all they admired was wealth and social standing. Berwald knew he had no reason to complain, in his life he lacked for nothing. Money was possessed in spades. Influence and the opportunities granted from being titled, par for the course. Berwald had everything but love in his life . He wasn’t even a product of love, just mere obligation that the Lord and Lady should produce an heir to further their line. Affection was absent both between his parents, and  towards  him, a marriage of convenience. Throughout his life, none had shown him any form of fondness or tenderness; it didn’t help either that one could liken his appearance to that of one of the creatures from the stories he so loved. Taller than most, eyes sharp and a face which rarely smiled, showing only his unhappiness for his situation.  Unsurprisingly, not a soul wanted to court him but that didn’t mean that they didn’t try. After all, when your spouse is rich does it really matter what they look like?

That was one of the other reasons why Berwald hadn't wanted to go home- he just knew his father would have found another suitor for him, or else another had, by unholy providence, found him.

One by one though, he turned them away, graciously in some cases, in others not so much. Still they came, and he retreated further and further to the one solace he had- his books. His parents had persisted and then his mother passed from illness, leaving him alon e in a house not quite big enough to escape his father's demands. Though months had passed, he still grieved and suspected he always would, the unresolved feelings of hurt festering inside him.

If he could have felt nothing he would have, but the fact of the matter was that, even though none showed him the same courtesy, the lonely lord had an unrivalled capacity to love, and he had loved his parents  so very  dearly. But no matter how he told them or showed them, they refused to love him back. It would be weakness, he concluded , for them to allow themselves to love one such as him .

All but one, that was. There was one person who had shown Berwald kindness, who had treated him with any degree of decency, and it was a wonderful twist of fate that they worked in the very place which Berwald considered to be his refuge- the library. Unfortunately, as fate would have it, the little Finn would never know how much he meant to him because every time Berwald would try to talk to him, panic would swell his throat and tighten his chest because what if he rejected him just like everyone else had? No, better to let his feelings be unspoken, let him love from afar and not get his heart broken.

For some reason that night as he stepped over the threshold of the house, he decided he could no longer take it. Berwald couldn't stand the rejection any more, being used. He wanted someone to love him for him, to see him for who he was, who he could be. 

Sight blurring with tears, Berwald all but ran up the stairs to his room and locked the door behind him. Not even bothering to remove his clothes or shoes, he climbed into his bed. The book he'd been reading the night before was where he'd left it on the bedside table, a childhood favourite about a woman who had been turned into a bird by a witch. The poor woman had been captured and forced to sing for the Queen until the Prince had freed her and, by showing her love and kindness unconditionally, she had been freed from the witch's spell.

Heedless of the pounding of his father's footsteps up the stairs, Berwald read the passage he loved so much:

_ " My song of sorrow I sing to thee,  _

_ My broken heart pretend, _

_ That you love me as much as I do you, _

_This curse only you can end. "_

"Berwald! Open this door immediately before I-"

It all happened very quickly. One moment Berwald was sat on his bed, the next his father had broken down the door. He wondered why his father wasn't advancing towards him, why he looked so very shocked.

He found out the reason why when he tried asking him, but all that left his mouth were mews and yowls.

"Witchcraft!" His father screamed, reaching for the gun on the wall. "Give me back my son!"

Terrified heart pounding in his chest, Berwald ran to the window and jumped, narrowly avoiding the spray from the 12-bore as he made his escape.

_'What's happening to me?'_

**Author's Note:**

> I know I haven't updated MET for a year and Clouded for like three months, but one of my discord pals really wanted a fic like this and I really wanted to write it. I will update the others soon but things are a little hectic, but when the depression hits you just right and you want to create, you can't say no XD
> 
> Hope you enjoyed the first chapter, please leave a little comment or something if you did :D


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